Varied Bunting

About the Varied Bunting

In the right light the male Varied Bunting is a jewel - a deep plum-purple body glowing with red on the nape and blue on the crown and rump, so richly dark that in poor light he can look almost black until the sun reveals the colors. The female is a plain warm brown, one of the least marked of songbirds.

Varied Buntings favor dense, thorny brush along desert washes, canyons, and scrubby hillsides, where the male sings a bright, jumbled warble from a hidden or exposed perch and the birds forage for seeds and insects.

In Texas they are warm-season breeders of the South Texas brush country and the Trans-Pecos, arriving in spring to the thickest thornscrub and slipping back south by fall - a sought-after specialty.

A note from behind the lens: those colors only ignite in direct, low-angle light, so morning and evening are everything. Find a singing male's favorite perch above the brush, get the sun behind you, and wait for him to turn and catch fire.